Greetings and welcome to this banner 96th and post–“America 250” performance of the Carnival of Fools! It’s great to be here living in America, with our superhighways and Coca-Cola, after 250 years of independence and occasionally lovably flat-footed indomitability.

Not that we can’t be occasionally bested. For one thing, there’s that whole Iran mess. Then all those global haters began griping over the strings Donald Trump pulled with FIFA in advance of the U.S. Men’s National Team’s game against Belgium in the World Cup — to get the (match-disqualifying) red card on USMNT striker Folarin Balogun retracted in time for the game. (My sensible take: If FIFA is corrupt, it should also be corrupt for us.)

Well, they get to laugh last this time. We could have subbed out the USMNT for the TMNT last night, and it wouldn’t have made much difference — Raphael might have shown some fight, at least. But the Belgians steamrolled us every bit as much as Napoleon or Alfred von Schlieffen ever steamrolled Belgium. Think of it as the EU’s revenge, and please understand that, whatever our petty divisions as a nation, Americans couldn’t care less — because we play real sports like football and baseball.

Beyond all the World Cup nonsense, I was prepared at first to choreograph today’s light, quasi-vacation Carnival around how America’s primary season has given us an unusual respite. I never really take a vacation, after all — it’s not my nature — but this was the closest I’d anticipate we’d get in 2026. We have a decent interval — why, one might even think of it as a temporary holiday — from primary season for the next month, all the way until Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens encounter one another in the Battle of the Yarmuk, a.k.a. the August 4 Michigan primary.

But all of that has been interrupted — the holiday’s been called off! Because, what do you know? Progressive avatar and not-so-secret ex-Nazi Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner has been accused of sexual assault yet again.

You Know, the More I Learn About This Platner Guy . . .

If you’re as much of a Norm Macdonald fan as I am, then you can fill in the blanks. And no, Maine’s presumptive (heavy emphasis) Democratic nominee for Senate against admirably resilient incumbent Susan Collins hasn’t been accused of invading Poland yet, but at this point, who knows what thoughts lurk in his heart? When I last signed off the Platner beat in Maine, I ended with these words:

Platner is a creation of young Ivy League socialists living in Washington, D.C., not an organic expression of his state’s sensibilities. He is the Democratic elite’s condescending idea of what a working-class hero ought to be; when everyone noticed around the time of his campaign’s launch that he seemed like he’d come out of central casting, it’s because he quite literally was cast in this role.

What does that mean for Susan Collins? Nobody can know for sure yet. Among other things, we’re probably not even done learning more about Graham Platner. Ask me what I think after 5 p.m. on July 13.

So now after Independence Day, just in time for final calls to be made by Democratic Top Men, out comes the confirmation from Politico that Graham Platner’s repulsive sexual aggression in human relationships is not merely confined to Republican operatives like ex-girlfriend Lyndsey Fifield, or burglars (whom he once promised to rape, “but not in a gay way,” presumably more like a Viking), or even his new wife (whom he was stepping out on with multiple sexting relationships on Kik as recently as last August).

No, we finally have the Democratic nail in the coffin, testimony from a Mainer named Jenny Racicot who was in a long-term relationship with Platner. No “D.C. operative” she, not like those who promoted and claimed to know Platner best, those Ivy League progressive Democratic Socialists searching for “blue-collar authenticity” over beers at Tune Inn. Racicot is just a normie Democrat local in Maine, who claims to have been raped by Platner, who — according to her — drunkenly broke into her house a few years ago to force himself upon her:

Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner, who is now the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.

“I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me,” she said. “I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, ‘This is no longer my choice.’”

Platner denied the allegations.

Yes, no doubt he would. Democrats are now rushing — at this incredibly late hour, Swalwell-like — to un-endorse him. (Among those is perpetually beset Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, who between this and his bosom buddy Swalwell seems to make the most curious of Capitol-area friends.) And, of course, the darker truth is that Democratic grandees have known about this for months if not years. The Jenny Racicot story was in fact part of the bait that the New York Times used to lure Lyndsey Fifield onto the record to advance the — whispered about, but still verboten in progressive spaces — reputation that Platner has long had in D.C. (note: not Maine) as an aggressively braggadocious rapey bartender-type. (Fifield has written about how the Times promised her she would not go on the record alone, then hung her out to dry.)

Psychological profiles sometimes require care to properly assemble. The mental path of a guy who proudly sported a Nazi Totenkopf on his chest until last November, when he decided to retcon his downwardly mobile antisocial life to that of a progressive “working class Joe,” is distinctly easier to navigate. Platner is not so much a recognizable human as he is a recognizable hoax, one familiar to all D.C. natives, born from the dreams of frustrated Washington Democratic aspirant activists, a Clayfaced mold upon which the likes of Jon Favreau and the Pod Save America latte class can cast their dreams: “This is what real America is like — a foulmouthed fascist bartender who apes our lingo and attaboys us over free beers!”

Let us not kid ourselves. As horrifying as Graham Platner’s entire failson life story has proven out to be, you are finally hearing about this final damning take — with names and ironclad sourcing, free and clear of “it’s GOP tricksiness!” as an excuse — for one reason only: because that 5:30 p.m. July 13 deadline for ballot replacement is still a week away. The Democratic establishment, knowing no other way to stop Platner and the progressives from squandering this seat, are unloading it all now, in one last mighty attempt to push him out and replace him with a blue-coded functionary.

They might succeed in pushing Platner out. But I doubt they’ll win the Senate race in Maine now, no matter what happens. Mainers weren’t enthusiastic about Governor Janet Mills. Jared Golden has retired from his ME-2 congressional seat and disclaimed all intent of getting into the race. Can Angus King be somehow cloned in time for July 13?

Apologies, therefore, for the abbreviated Carnival this week. I had other things planned, but events are moving fast now in Maine. Up until now, I felt quietly assured that Platner was doomed, and I was looking forward to chronicling the carnage up through November. Now I know he’s doomed and am waiting to see whether he’s a coward, or if he’ll take the honest man’s way out and retire this week into instant shameful obscurity. Let’s hope not!

Until next week.